The New Zealand Department of Labour commenced a three year project involving policy makers, researchers, community development workers and three communities to gather public input on economic development issues. The project team spent time planning, implementing, observing and reflecting on issues identified by community members to develop policy recommendations for ministers and the cabinet. The key aspect was that the team worked at the community's pace and allowed common issues to emerge without pushing their own agenda.
A European Commission funded project called Smarticipate aimed to develop an IT system to facilitate citizen participation in urban planning. The system would use open government data and 3D modeling to visualize proposals and provide automated feedback on feasibility. It was tested in Hamburg, Rome and London to integrate top-down and